Fair point, and I agree with that. But by that notion, why would you suggest a company that already has known IP, choose to ignore those IP and instead focus on new ones, when in your own words that's going to eat away more money from them?
This is contradictory; if they are known in some way to an everyday consumer, then that means they have brand recognition. How much or how little isn't up to you or I, only Sega, and just comes down to what would be sufficient for whatever budget there is allocated to them. And not to argue semantics here, but when I hear the phrase "everyday consumer", I think of the mass market. I'd say more "to the core gamer" personally speaking, but core gamers are also mass market consumers. They aren't mutually exclusive.
I think this is just you projecting your own opinion here, in terms of saying what's "best" or isn't, but that's not really what I'm in disagreement with. My contention's with the idea that you're equating these game's quality being driven by market focus testing, committee design panels or the such. I'm sure these companies consulted a few outside opinions and their suits had their own words on what to include or take out, but I can guarantee you they weren't the main voices in shaping those games, not even close.
These games you listed are games that you probably feel are among the best personally speaking. I likely don't see them that way, and could spend hours going into why if I really wanted, but again the point is you're drawing a parallel as if extensive market research focus-testing and design-by-committee is vital to a game's success or even sales. While I agree that they can play a factor, relying on it too much, like any good tool, can hurt the end result. It's all about moderation.
You're mistaking innovation as being an inherent trait of quality, when just above you listed games that you said are good because they iterated on concepts, not necessarily innovated. You don't need innovation to have quality, and what's more defining what's "innovative" is usually in the eye of the beholder. For someone not into a given franchise, some random feature may not seem all that new, but for fans of that property, it can be seen as very innovative. And I think, for any pre-existing IP, appeasing the core fans takes precedent over chasing new heads if that runs the risk of completely alienating the existing fanbase (not necessarily a game, but you can see this effect in plain view with Microsoft's entire handling of the XBO early on in the generation).
And while on the subject of Sonic, yeah I think we can both agree that part of the reason it's been so inconsistent is b/c Sonic Team has not found a formula to stick to and iterate upon, altho they have plenty of good ones to choose from if they slowed a bit to look at the back catalog. I'd also say the series being so experimental is part of the problem: by comparison I wouldn't say the Mario games are actually that innovative, but the difference is that EAD iterates on a foundation adjusting a few things here and there, and making sure the consistency stays up as a result. When you're working with known quantities you can depend on predictable results, but Sonic Team throws the baby out with the bathwater almost every other game.
I also disagree with your idea that Sega couldn't "easily" (and let's be honest, no company can "easily" do this; it takes a lot of effort and balance) revive or modernize their older IP, because first of all you have to decide what criteria you're using to consider something "modernized". What does that even mean? Does that mean it has to be open-world? Or be multiplayer-focused? Or have 100s of hours of content? Or have microtransactions or lootboxes? Because truth be told, those are poor measures to go by when you have new IP today that don't do any combination of those things, but are in themselves successful. If you mean in terms of "QOL" features to be "easier" for gamers to beat them, wouldn't that be a subjective point? Not every game is going to accommodate for every skill level, or every player habit, and some players should stop thinking that every game has to cede to their every want and desire or it'll be a financial failure. If the game achieves a consistent vision and is good, and is marketed properly, it has a very good chance of finding an audience. It really is that simple :/
No one mentioned that, yes, but you're definitely alluding to that type of idea, and I've seen others mention similar things (just around in general). Defining success in the basic sense is simple: it has to recoup its development and marketing budget, and garner attention for the dev/publisher and (if they're a platform holder) platform, and churn at least a bit of a profit in the long run. But when people usually start talking about this, they never consider that budgetary requirements vary drastically from game to game, publisher to publisher etc.
This also seems to be ignoring that only a slice of given games from any of the platform holders actually do significantly big numbers. For every mainline Mario, Zelda, Uncharted or Halo, you have a Metroid, DriveClub, 1886 or Quantum Break that does (compared relatively) "okay" or even mediocre numbers. GT Sport is part of one of Sony's biggest IP yet came out stumbling and is struggling to find a foothold, so at time you can't even count on certain games being a sure bet.
For as inconsistent as they have been in quality, the Sonic Team Sonic games usually put up pretty respectable numbers, and the Yakuza games have only been growing in sales as they are finally being given some attention in the West. They may not do 10+ million numbers but there's no guarantee that current IP from any of the Big 3 will continue to do 10+ million numbers, either....
...which, if they have the proper budgets, would be okay, because they likely wouldn't need to sell that high to be financially viable. Which is what I'm getting at with your notion of "success": even besides the budget/marketing aspect, simply having a diverse roster of games that at least find a niche for their platform, in a way also helps diversify the platform's library and give it a
better selling angle versus contemporaries.
Sony has DREAMS coming out (hopefully) soon; I know some people want to think it'll do gangbusters but I honestly see it only being modestly successful, 5 million LTD or less, especially if it comes out very late in the year or next year. And this is besides the point it's one of my most anticipated PS4 games, but the thing is....that'd be okay. It doesn't need big numbers. Hell, it could barely do 1 million and probably still recoup dev costs for Sony and Japan Studio, and also have the added benefit of strengthening the PS4's brand image among core users and casuals considering a purchase.
They're also expanding their arcade division efforts too, however. Just because they are doing one doesn't mean they aren't doing the other. And they've recently announced console ports for Border Break, releasing a new Virtual On, VC4 etc. You can't simply ignore all of that stuff (even if it's not to your gaming tastes) and act as though they're only taking the pachinko sector seriously.
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